


In Loyal Service

by Anonymous



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bodyguard, Brotherhood, Complicated Relationships, Dehumanization, Disassociation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Extremely Dubious Consent, Family Issues, Flashbacks, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Muteness, POV Loki (Marvel), Plot, Power Dynamics, Violence, personal assistant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-04 16:59:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16350587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Amidst the bustle of a bar on Knowhere, the Grandmaster finds, just-- Gosh, he's just the most delightful little thing, and just the right kind of "shattered and broken".AKA that fic where Loki, destroyed by grief, becomes the Grandmaster's personal attendant and guard.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _So much_ of the inspo for this comes from long conversations with Ren at [firstofsakaar](https://firstofsakaar.tumblr.com/), and this really wouldn't be anything without her ideas as much as mine, so! Love her! Because I do!
> 
> I'm really interested in leaning into Loki's very shattered mental & emotional state in this fic, so please heed the warnings!

The bar, _The Screaming Rutga_ , is much like any bar in any mining town in any sector. It is grim and dismal, a mix of miners, overworked market workers, and travellers on their way to better and brighter destinations, and Loki sits at the bar, his gaze focused on the bubbling blackness of his acidic wine, which is brewed from the grappa fruit, and is named _Gov_. It is thick and shifts like the sparkle of distant stars, but for now it is still in its tall glass, half-drunk.

Loki will imbibe four or five glasses before he stumbles from the bar into the lodgings he has procured in the rest house across the dismal, ugly street, and collapse as a corpse onto his hard bed.

Staring into the blackness, he is reminded of the expanse of space that once he spied from the seat of the Bifrost, looking out upon the span of the Nine Realms, humbled by that great and eternal beauty of _infinity_ , watched o’er by the watcher himself.

Does Heimdall see him now, he wonders?

What does it matter?

Thor is dead.

Closing his eyes, Loki lays his forehead against the freezing cool of his stone-like palm, and he inhales long and slow, not allowing himself to breathe quicker, nor to give into the torrent of emotions that threatens to rise from him at the mere thought. It is like this every time, _every time_ , he considers Thor – every time!

Two months, and yet every day is but a new blade cutting harsh at Loki’s skin.

And at his error! At Loki’s madness! His stupidity, and his foolishness, at his _evil_!

His folly, in fighting with Thor, in decrying the land that bore him, in seeking out such paltry things as his father’s favour – and for what? To see his brother fall from the Bifrost, to see him fall so quick into dead space? To be hauled back from the edge of the bridge, kicking and screaming, as Heimdall gripped him about his waist and stopped him from following his brother into that hungry abyss?

 _(“Do you see him!?” Loki demands, and when a guard comes too close to him, attempting his apprehension, he turns the man to dust where he stands, flames devouring his every inch of skin and leaving him scant ashes before a sound can leave his throat. “Do you see him, Watcher, you who sees all? DO YOU!?”_ _How the scream pulls ragged from him, as a rusted sword from a stone! How the tears fall down his cheeks!_

_“Loki,” Heimdall says, and when two guards reach for Loki’s arms, Loki throws them each back from him, their shields clattering when their bodies hit the floor. “Calm—”_

_“I will not be calm! I will not, he’s my— What is the point of you, if you cannot tell me where to follow? I must follow him, I didn’t mean to, Heimdall, I didn’t mean to—” The very world seems to tilt about him, and Loki is upon his knees, his vision blackening at its edges, his very soul feeling separate from his body. “I didn’t… I did—” He tries to breathe, but his very lungs feel as hard ice, unwavering, and they allow no air to catch._

_“Loki!” Odin thunders, and when he comes too abruptly into Loki’s panicked space, Loki acts unthinkingly, lashing out upon instinct alone: he backhands his father, and sends him sprawling in the ground._

_He strikes his king, and it occurs to him, however madly, that he thought no man could strike the Allfather and yet live.)_

Music plays in the tavern, and Loki cares little for it – Loki cares little for anything. He drinks, and he travels, and he lies awake at nights, scarcely able to put himself to sleep until he has mentally put himself through a thousand flagellations. And the nightmares, then, the nightmares that tear at his very soul, that rip him from the embrace of sleep and leave him sobbing in the darkness of the night, wailing for his brother like he is yet a babe.

He feels sick to his stomach, nausea wrestling with his gut like the wind with the roiling sea, and yet he knows he ought eat something—

Glancing to the left, he looks for the chalkboard, upon which a variety of cheap meals are scrawled in neat Farese script. They sell Gr’vara here, the second item on the list – a dish made of fermented meats, served in a thick stew, and once more he hails the bartender’s attention, bringing the woman closer to him.

“What’ll it be?” she asks, and he gestures to the chalkboard before making a simple V with the two fingers on his left hand. “The Gr’vara, right… You ever talk?” Loki neither shakes his head nor nods it: he keeps his gaze on her face, his expression utterly blank, and her expression falters slightly. “Gr’vara, coming up.”

Loki looks back to his glass of Gov, and he takes a long, gulping sip.

( _“No! If you destroy the bridge, you’ll never see her again!” But it is but a momentary distraction, for swiftly does Loki throw out a burst of seiðr that throws Thor from his feet, leaving him skidding to the edge of the Bifrost, and yet still does he hammer! Still does he throw Mjolnir’s great head against the crystal surface, forcing it to splinter and crack, and Loki tries to run to meet him, but he is too far away._

_The Bifrost falls, and with it falls Thor._

_It is as if the very universe snaps, and Loki is thrown back by its impact._ )

“Well, uh, fellas, I— Gee, _golly_ , I mean, I’m just flattered, but, uh… Hm. I don’t know…” Leaning back against the bar, a tall fellow with silver hair has his elbows upon the bar, and he is surveying the men that surround him – these are Hija, and each of them is eight or nine feet tall, _far_ taller than the fellow they look down upon. Their skin is like ceramic in this light, a shiny white that reminds Loki of new leather, and each of them stare with fury at him, their singular eyes red and watery with anger. “There’s only, what, nine of you? Against _one_ of me? Golly, I mean— You there, hey!”

Loki meets the gaze of the stranger, and once more, his expression doesn’t change. He keeps still in his place, staring into this stranger’s eyes: they are honey-coloured and swirling with light, and they remind him painfully of Heimdall’s.

Loki wishes he was dead.

He should be dead, and his brother should yet live.

“Hey, uh, blue-eyes – gee, aren’t you just a cool, uh, cool drink of water? Care to the join the fight, even up the numbers? Make it an even ten? _Ten_ versus me, um, that seems… That seems a lot fairer.” One of the Hija growls low in his throat, and Loki distantly wonders what Thor would do in this situation.

Likely, compelled by his sense of honour, he would protect this fellow, skinny and older than these young men with their heaving muscles and youthful anger; likely, Thor would be this man’s saviour.

Thor is dead.

_Thor is dead._

The knives are in Loki’s hands before he has time to so much as breathe, and as he moves through the midst of these great, hulking figures, he feels as if he is naught but a black stain in clear water, poison incarnate. His blade slits through a throat and pink blood cascades thick and hot over his invisibly blood-stained palms; a bone cracks as he drives a burst of magic through it, making one of them scream in pain; necks snap, bodies fall, and arteries give way to the smoothness of his cut.

When it is over, and Loki stands amidst the circle of heavy corpses, his tunic dyed pink with Hija blood and his daggers hanging loosely at his sides, he feels adrift. The sounds in the bar do not sound well in his ears – he cannot hear the music, nor the clatter and chatter of an establishment such as this one.

The stranger is speaking with him, looking at Loki approvingly, and although Loki sees his lips part and shift, although he sees his tongue move in his mouth, Loki hears him not. Loki stares at him for a few moments, aware of the pound of his own heartbeat in his ears, and then he vanishes his daggers back to their place of concealment in his sleeves, the pink blood bubbling from his clothes as so much rainwater. It evaporates with ease, and he looks dispassionately to the corpses beneath him, stepping delicately from their midst and shifting his hand in an easy movement: the corpses fade from the ether, banished to the yard outside, where their stench will not offend those who might smell them.

Loki smells nothing. Hears nothing. Feels nothing.

Thor is dead.

Turning back to the bar, he draws his glass to his lips, and he drinks from it greedily, feeling the burn of the acidic substance in his throat, steaming on his tongue, and then he sets it down.

The bartender is staring at him, her jaw slack, her eyes wide, and he is aware he must not stay, for he has shown too much power in too short a period – great harassment is sure to follow him, from the Hija’s employers if not from law enforcement, which is negligible upon Knowhere regardless.

A golden hand clasps at Loki’s wrist, and he gasps in a breath as if he is a drowning man, his senses dragged abruptly into stark relief. He hears the music in the bar, too loud in ears that were deaf to the world but a moment ago: he hears the music and the loud chatter and talk of the patrons, hears the thrum of the beer in the taps from the kegs, hears the grind of machinery outside of the bar; he hears the rats that crawl beneath the bar, hears everything, hears everything, too much, too much, the lights too bright—

“Hey, hey, look at me,” the golden stranger says, stepping closer, and he puts his hands on Loki’s face, his hands, on Loki’s face! Cupping around the bone of his eye sockets, the golden hands block Loki’s peripheral vision, forcing him to look forward into the stranger’s hypnotically beautiful eyes, making Loki’s breath hitch in his throat. His hands are warm, so warm that Loki can scarcely stand it, and yet with their touch upon his flesh, the sounds seem quieter, the lights dimmer. “ _Wow!_ Somebody, somebody really… Something did a number on you, huh, honey? You okay?”

Loki stares at the stranger’s face, his lips slightly parted, and he answers not.

“Stars,” the stranger murmurs softly, and the side of his hand strokes gently over the edge of Loki’s cheek, careful not to move too low down and allow Loki’s periphery to be revealed. “You are just— You’re just _beautiful_. It’s like they, uh, they carved you out of marble, huh? And those knives! Gosh! You’re… You’re a real package, huh? Brawn _and_ beauty.”

Loki does not know what is happening. The pounding in his ears is beginning to recede, he knows that – his heart beat slower, and he can smell the stranger now, smell the scents that cling to his golden robes. Distant stardust clings to the hem of them, and yet woven amidst the threads are the smells of fruits long lost to the universe, of blood, of sex, of such broad-ranging scents and tastes as Loki has ever known…

“What’s… What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“He doesn’t talk,” the bartender says, and the stranger glances away from Loki to her. Loki is rewarded with an image of this man’s face in profile: his strong jaw-line and the hard panels of his cheek bones, the shine of his silver eyebrows, the artfully-carved shell of his ear… He has a long neck, a neck that Loki absently thinks would slit well, would rip easily through its middle—

“Ah-ah!” the stranger says to him, sternly and sharply, and Loki feels himself inhale slightly before bowing his head: strangely, he feels cowed by the absent scold, and to feel cowed is to feel _something_ … He wants to feel more. “He doesn’t— Not, not at all?”

“Not since he’s been here,” the bartender says. “Three days now. I don’t think he can.”

 _(“Some days,” Thor hisses across the dungeon, for the five of them are locked in the darkness, each of them bound and shacked to the walls. Upstairs, some floors above them, Fandral is busy at work – assuming, generously, that he has not been captured in his rescue attempt already. “I wish you would simply cut out your silver tongue. Seems to me, brother, that it has only ever cursed me, with purpose or without!”_ )

“Open— Can you open your, uh, your mouth for me, sweetheart?” the stranger asks, and Loki obeys unthinkingly: his jaw drops lower, his lips parting, and the stranger leans back to peer inside, curiously looking past the neat, white enamel of Loki’s teeth and to his tongue, which rests on the bed of his mouth.

Loki doesn’t wear silver anymore, for there is no sense wearing silver if not to mirror his brother’s gold: just as Thor no longer wields the storm, Loki wields not his silver tongue.

“Hmm,” the stranger hums, looking thoughtful. Loki is aware, distantly – as if the thoughts belong to a ghost, and not to himself – that once upon a time, he would not have allowed a stranger to touch him like this, with such easy propriety. He would not have allowed this uninvited touch, nor this careful examination; he would not have killed nine men for the crime of threatening a stranger; Thor would be alive, and Loki would be—

 _Anything_.

( _“You shall be imprisoned in the bowels of Asgard,” Odin says, snaps the words, and Loki barely hears them, barely feels them rush over his head. He could not care less what the one-eyed king might say, might think, might do – he cares only for Thor, Thor, lost from the Bifrost, fallen!_

_“Nay,” Loki says. “No, no, I shall follow Thor, I shall follow him, I shall find him—”_

_“Thor is dead!” Odin all but screams, and Loki feels he is shattering as he shudders away from his father’s harsh words, from the tear shining in his single eye, from the distraught look on his face. “And you have killed him, Loki, in your quest for power!”_

_“Not power,” Loki whispers, gripping at his own hair and pulling it too hard, dragging some strands rough from their roots. “Not power, not power, I don’t— No, no, Father, I never meant to, I only wanted—”_

_“Heimdall sees him not,” Odin whispers. “You have committed him to Hel.”_

_“No—“)_

Anything, if only Thor could be alive.

“What— What are you doing out here, honey? Because, uh, with a face like this, skills like that… I mean, you could be making, um, you could be making a _lot_ of credits. No sense throwing skills like that around for, uh, for _free_ , huh? What do you say to, ah, to taking a walk with me, mmm? I could— I gotta say, I’ve been _looking_ for somebody like you, just to, uh… Be my guard…” The stranger trails off, as if he is distracted by the thinness of Loki’s lips, or perhaps the shape of his teeth: he is staring at Loki’s mouth, and then his gaze flits back again, once more active and alight with focus. “You think you’d be free, ha, for an interview?”

Loki says nothing, but he steps slightly closer, for the stranger radiates heat, and for so long, Loki has rested in the cold of his own body. His hands come up from his sides, and he slides them to the stranger’s neck, cupping the sides of the column and feeling the suppleness of the golden skin, feeling the heat of the blood that flows beneath it. The stranger has a stripe upon his chin, painted in some blue pigment, but Loki knows he ought not touch it – it is like as not some mark of status or other, and he knows what happens when he steps from his place, when he pretends himself a royal when he is naught but a stolen relic, a monster from a realm apart.

They are very close now, he and the stranger. The stranger’s nose brushes against Loki’s, for Loki looks up and into his face, and he can feel the ghost of the stranger’s breath upon Loki’s lips, a warm kiss of air that reminds Loki of a summer’s breeze upon Asgard, of summer on Asgard, of Asgard, of—

Loki closes his eyes, just for a moment, and then he opens them again. The stranger looks not perturbed by Loki’s behaviour, but instead _curious_ , as if Loki is something interesting, as if he is something more than a mad beast, crazed and drenched in blood.

“Hey, uh, pack— Pack that Gr’vara to go, would ya? I think I’m gonna take this one, uh… Take him home.” Perhaps Loki should argue with the stranger, perhaps he should drag himself away – perhaps he should vehemently shake his head, or even flee, but Loki cares not to do any of those things. Is not this simpler? What care has he, if some stranger might make use of his sword? “Listen, uh, I’m— You can call me— Ha! Well! I guess, uh, I guess you won’t be calling me anything, huh, sweetpea? But my name is, uh, it’s _the Grandmaster_.”

The Grandmaster’s hands come away from Loki’s face, but Loki doesn’t move his own: he grips a little harder at the Grandmaster’s neck, and he leans in closer, that their chests might come into contact. He is so warm, this Grandmaster, and how hot his blood flows – Loki wonders what colour it might be, and how thick it might feel upon his palms, how—

“ _No_ ,” the Grandmaster chides him, shaking a finger at him, and Loki inhales slowly before reluctantly withdrawing his hands. The music is no longer playing, Loki doesn’t think – he glances about, and he sees that the bar is all but silent, each of the patrons watching he and this Grandmaster, their expressions a mix of curious and horrified…

Have they never seen a wolf tamed before?

Have they never seen a murderer made use of?

The Grandmaster takes his right hand, pressing the box with Loki’s stew into his left, and he leads him by his arm from the bar, letting Loki walk after him. He has not had enough to drink – his gait is steady and smooth, and he scarcely feels the effect of the alcohol, for his mind runs much too fast, and too disjointed. Everything is disjointed, these days: his every thought is as jagged as the shard of a shattered mirror, and strange things hurt him.

Everything hurts him, everything.

But not—

Not this man.

There is no pain in the Grandmaster. There is heat, and distraction. Loki lets the Grandmaster lead him, not to the lodgehouse in which Loki is booked to stay, but through the winding markets of Knowhere’s capital, between stalls and brightly lit buildings, through so many streets. Many years ago, centuries ago, when first Loki had stepped foot upon Knowhere, he had been enchanted at its variety, at the wonder here despite the dullness of its landscapes so far from the nearest sun and heated artificially from within, but now—

It might as well be ashes.

Loki feels no more enchantment: his magic is a tool of destruction, an ugly beast that snaps at its master and his enemies in turn, and he shall find no pleasure in it.

At some point, Loki stops paying attention to where the Grandmaster is taking him. He does not know when, but it is as if an aqueduct has been shifted within his very brain, concentrating his focus not onto the outer world, but onto some nebulous, inner spirit to which Loki knows not the form nor the meaning. He knows that he is walking, can feel his feet upon the ground, but that is all he knows: all he thinks of is the blackness of the glass of Gov he had been imbibing, of the swirl of silver sparkles within its depths. The thought of that infinitely dark liquid comforts him, as the pitch darkness quiets a panicked bird, and he only comes to himself when the Grandmaster’s hand pats against his cheek.

Loki is seated upon a table. When had that happened?

Surely he had been walking – walking through the streets of Knowhere, allowing this Grandmaster to lead him by the hand… A hand reaches for him, coming too suddenly into space, and his hand wrenches it by the wrist, gripping it tightly—

“ _Hey!”_ says the Grandmaster’s sharp voice, growling at him, and Loki freezes instinctively, turning to look at him. Tracing his arm to where his hand grasps, he sees another fellow, this one with a black stripe down his chin in parallel to the blue strip on the Grandmaster’s, and Loki has him held by his forearm. His dark eyes are angry, but the anger seems directed more at the Grandmaster than at Loki himself. “ _Drop it_ , baby.”

Loki opens his palm, and quickly he retracts his hands to his lap, looking blindly for the soup he had been holding in his other hand, and spying it not. He is seated upon a table, yes, an examination table in some sort of clinic.

“It is _feral_ ,” the stranger that is not the Grandmaster says damningly.

“He’s _cute_ ,” the Grandmaster replies, and he reaches out, winding his fingers through Loki’s hair, curling through the dark locks. Once upon a time, Loki had greased them very day, careful to ensure no one would touch him, careful to ensure that Thor could not affect his hair to stand on end with a burst of static, as so oft he had done in their youth… Now, his hair is thick and dark about his head, and is no doubt coarse beneath the Grandmaster’s touch, even as he winds his fingers through it, dragging painfully through old tangles. “Tan-Tan, all he, uh— All he needs is a bath and a little _training_ , and he’ll suit me, mmm, down to the ground.”

Tan-Tan reaches out, and Loki flinches bodily, away from the white hand that reaches for him, but the Grandmaster tuts.

“Don’t be naughty, honey, let— Let him have a look at you.” Loki does his best to stay still as Tan-Tan touches his face, using his thumb and forefinger to further open Loki’s eye and get a better look at his pupil and iris, before he opens Loki’s mouth and peers within.

“It… doesn’t speak?”

“Apparently not.”

“It has a tongue.”

“Yeah, Tan-Tan, I see he’s got a tongue.”

“There is no scarring upon its throat – nothing that might suggest a reason for its muteness.”

“What, uh— What is he?”

“Æsir, I thought, but…” Tan-Tan’s fingers linger on the cold panel of Loki’s cheek, and when the Grandmaster looks at him quizzically, his head tilting to the side, Loki allows his flesh to give way. Blue colouring ripples over his white skin, showing the marks beneath, and Tan-Tan’s blank expression changes minutely. Something like interest shows in his dark eyes, but in a moment Loki moves back to his own skin once more, white beneath the harsh clinical lighting. “Jötunn. A _shapeshifter_.”

He says this last word like it is a slur, an ugly word for an ugly thing, and Loki swallows hard, leaning away from Tan-Tan and into the press of the Grandmaster’s hand. His leg jolts when his examiner touches his knee, and the man only narrowly escapes being kicked.

“It is feral,” Tan-Tan repeats again, darkly.

“But is he _healthy_?” the Grandmaster presses, and when Tan-Tan says nothing, he pulls Loki up from the table, leading him down a corridor. Loki’s stomach gives a low growl of hunger, and immediately, the Grandmaster coos over him, saying, “Aw, _baby_ , you— You need something to eat, huh? Here, here’s your, uh, here’s your soup…”

He presses the container into Loki’s palm, and he presses Loki into a seat. Obediently, Loki opens it and begins to eat neatly and fastidiously, glancing about at his surroundings as he does so… He had moved too quickly. He remembers the room they had been in – examination room, clinical, white – and he sees this room now, but he does not remember the corridors they had travelled to reach it…

The soup is good. He eats it greedily.

This is a bedroom, decorated in rich gold brocades and red fabrics, with accents of light blue. It is a room fit for a king, or for a prince suited to such colours… Thor had had a bedroom like this, once upon a time.

( _Loki walks upon bare air, Skywalking with Asgard left behind him. He shall walk until the ends of the universe – he shall walk until he finds the end of the universe and walks past it, walks through the gates of Hel and beseeches his daughter at her throne._

 **_Pray, daughter, return my brother to me,_ ** _he shall say, **and take me in his stead.**_

**_Let me die, o daughter._ **

**_Please, let me die_ ** _.)_

Thor is dead.

The thought hits him like a blow, and he hisses in pain as the container in his hand falters, spilling some of its contents upon his thigh: swiftly does the Gr’vara burn through the fabric of his breeches, and when it meets his skin, he burns it away with seiðr, leaving it bubbling from his flesh.

“Aw, baby, don’t be _messy_ ,” the Grandmaster says lowly, and he reaches out, cupping Loki’s cheek. “What’s— Hm. Why don’t you, uh, use some of that magic for me, huh? Spell your name out for me. I need… I need something to call you.” Loki hesitates for a moment, but then he obeys. Once upon a time, Loki might have lied – he is the Liesmith, after all…

Was.

 **LOKI** , he proclaims upon the air.

“Low-key,” the Grandmaster repeats softly. “ _Loki_.” Something about the way the stranger says his name, the way it is intoned… It comforts him. Nobody has ever said his name like this, pronounced it in so casual and so easy a way – _Loki_ feels not like a curse on this man’s lips, but like a name.

Loki nods his head, and eats another bite of his stew.

When the stew is finished, Loki vanishes the container and the spoon alike, and the Grandmaster reaches for him, leading him by both hands toward the bed. Loki is trembling slightly, but the Grandmaster doesn’t seem to notice as he whispers for Loki to remove his shoes.

Loki leaves his boots on the golden carpet, and the Grandmaster slowly pushes him to lie back upon the bed – a bed made for a king, not for Loki, not for Loki, and he knows his place, knows it too well. He shakes his head urgently, and the Grandmaster releases him: Loki drops heavily to the ground, his shoulders against the bedside.

Frowning, the Grandmaster drops into a crouch before him, his arms rested on his knees.

“Aren’t you just— Aren’t you just a _curious_ cat?” the Grandmaster asks, speaking, it seems, more to himself than to Loki. “What, you— You don’t want to sleep in the bed, huh, sweetheart? But what if I need me something to keep me cool?” Loki raises his palm, and ice crystals form upon its surface, swirling up into a small globe of cool air. The Grandmaster laughs, tapping his finger against Loki’s nose. “Aw, that’s— That’s very _thoughtful_ of you, honey, but no, no, I, uh… I don’t think so. You sleep down here for now, then, while I, uh… Go get some work done… You want a pillow?”

Loki says nothing.

“No,” the Grandmaster muses thoughtfully, and he touches Loki’s chin, his thumb gently stroking the jut of bone there. “Guess, uh, guess you wouldn’t…” Loki shivers as the Grandmaster’s fingers play against his throat, and thoughtlessly, he presses into more of the touch. “Aw, you _like_ that?” The Grandmaster’s nails scratch against the skin, just over the pulse point, and Loki shudders. “Golly, you are just— That head of yours is a real mess, hm? You just seem like a bag’a shattered glass right here, honey. Lucky for you, I… I like jigsaw puzzles.”

Loki’s eyes are drooping, despite the lack of drink in his system, despite the lack of harm he has laid upon his own psyche, replaying his own worst memories as if for some ceremony. He has only the warmth of the room and the sweetness of the incense upon the air; he feels the Grandmaster’s fingers scratching at his neck, slowly coaxing him to lie down upon the ground, lie upon the golden carpet beside the great and ornate bed…

“Gosh, you’re such a treat,” the Grandmaster murmurs, stroking his hair. “I can’t— I can’t, uh, can’t believe you just fell into my lap like this, sweetheart, it’s, uh, it’s kismet, I think.” Loki’s eyes fall closed, and he is aware of the Grandmaster’s fingers on his hair even as he floats upon scant air, imagining the blackness of the Gov beneath him, a swirling sea of deepest, pitch-black liquid…

Like the abyss of space itself, hungry, hungry and eternal and infinite!

Loki sleeps, for the first time in two months, with no nightmares to wake him, and no horrors tearing at his mind.

He sleeps soundly, still and silent, until morning comes.


	2. Chapter 2

Loki wakens slowly, shifting carefully upon the floor. The gold threads of the carpet shine slightly in the dim light, and he draws his palm delicately over the spread of the carpet, feeling its shimmer… The room is very dark indeed, each of the lights turned off and the curtains to the window closed tightly.

Slowly, Loki rises to sit instead of lying upon the ground, and he turns about, his chin against the edge of the mattress as he looks at the figure asleep in the bed.

In the darkness, he can see the shape of the Grandmaster in his bedclothes, safely ensconced beneath the silken sheets; a fragment of light comes through a gap in the loose curtain upon the window, and it lights well the planes of the Grandmaster’s face. His expression is relaxed in his sleep, his jaw slack, his eyes closed loosely, and Loki lowly moves to stand, his palms upon the edge of the bed, and he looks over him with distant curiosity.

He sleeps…

Loki knows not what time it might be, nor even where he is. He is in a bedroom, yes, the Grandmaster’s bedroom – this he knows. Last night, he was examined by another man, one with a similar stripe upon his chin: Tan-Tan. Now, Loki is here, and he has had his fill of sleep, but—

Can he wake him?

Loki knows not.

The Grandmaster had said he would make use of him, as some guard or other, but sleeping within his bedchambers is unexpected, unexpected indeed, and Loki is unsure as to whether he ought slip out into the wider facility… And yet he knows well he does not recall the way from the infirmary room to here, let alone from this bedroom out into wider form of Knowhere. Certainly, he might find his way if he tries, but he might just as easily get lost, or upset this Tan-Tan person…

“Hmm? Kitten?” the Grandmaster murmurs softly, shifting his head upon the pillow and looking at him lazily. “Open the, uh— Open the curtains for me, would you, sweetheart?” Eager for an instruction to distract him, Loki stands slowly from his place upon his knees, and he moves across the room, taking the curtains in his hands and slowly sliding them apart. Light filters in from the marketplace outside, where the artificial day-lights hang like small suns in the air above the cityscape, shining down and allowing warmth and brightness to filter into the room, catching the metallic threads throughout the room. The gold shimmers, shining, and so too does the smudged blue stripe upon the Grandmaster’s chin as he raises his head, slowly sitting up in bed.

The sheet comes away from his chest, falling loosely about his hips, and Loki can see the golden expanse of his chest. Silver hair curls in a thatch upon his chest, sliding down between his pectoral muscles and down toward his navel, and so too does silver hair curl down beneath the sheets, creating a thin trail of hair toward his groin. He is lithely built, but not skinny, and Loki looks at his body without shame, taking in the lines of blue that curl in bands about his shoulders and run in symmetry down his chest…

“You, uh, you wanna touch, baby?” the Grandmaster asks softly, and Loki looks at him blankly, not really comprehending the invitation. Why should he touch the Grandmaster, when the Grandmaster is naught but skin, as anyone else?

Turning away from the Grandmaster in search of something to occupy himself, Loki looks to the stand in the corner of the room, where his ensemble from the day previous hangs neatly upon two hooks. Loki reaches for the under robe, which is made of a soft, blue fabric. Taking it from its hook, he holds it in his hands, his seiðr working through the fabric and removing the creases from the fabric, and then he looks to the Grandmaster.

The Grandmaster is smirking, looking at Loki with a sardonic look shining in his eyes, and Loki watches him for a long few moments, inhaling softly. The Grandmaster grins, then, drawing back his lips and showing his teeth, and then he slowly stands from the bed.

Loki steps forward, drawing the underpiece of the robe over the Grandmaster’s head and smoothing it out over his body, reaching for the fastenings at the side of his hips and drawing them tightly upon his body before stepping away, taking up the golden robe that comes over the number and drawing it delicately over the Grandmaster’s arms. The Grandmaster lets Loki dress him, making no complaint and comfortably letting Loki wait on him as if he is used to being dressed by another, and yet Loki sees no sign of an attendant. Loki draws the final belt about his waist, tightening it in his place, and then he leans back to look at the Grandmaster’s legs before moving in search of the loose, red trousers he had seen the Grandmaster wear the day previous.

“Drawer to your right, baby. Second one down,” the Grandmaster murmurs, as if reading Loki’s thoughts in the furrow of his brow. Loki looks to the drawer in question, and he plucks out a pair of the trousers before moving back to the Grandmaster, dropping to a crouch and allowing the Grandmaster to step into them before Loki draws them up to his waist, affecting the robes to bunch up at their skirts – foolish of him. Next time, certainly, he will know to reach for the breeches first, to set them upon the Grandmaster’s legs and put the robes on afterward…

“You are just as cute as Christmas,” the Grandmaster says, and he reaches for Loki’s chin as he had last night, his fingers scratching against the underside of Loki’s throat, and Loki leans into the touch, exhaling softly. “Look at— Just look at _you_ , baby! I didn’t, uh, I didn’t even ask you yet, and here you are, uh, taking care of me. You are just the prettiest little thing. _Gosh_ , Lo-Lo.”

 _Lo-Lo_ …

Nobody has ever called him that before.

It evokes in Loki a curious emotion, settled thickly in the well of his gut, to be called by so twee an appellation, and yet it is so unfamiliar, so unlike anything that Loki has ever experienced before. Loki… Loki likes this. Loki likes the easy way in which the Grandmaster claims ownership of him, with his proprietary hands, his nicknames…

Perhaps this is where he ought have been, from the beginning. Perhaps this is his natural state, perhaps this is his natural place.

Foolish was he to think himself a prince, a king, a creature deserving of a rule, an empire, or even the scarcest recognition that he might be suitable. His father was right to deny him, to set him aside where Thor was the king-to-be – Thor…

“Hey,” the Grandmaster murmurs, clutching tight at Loki’s chin, and Loki looks at him, his thoughts set adrift and lost unto the abyss. “I, uh, I need shoes, Lo-Lo.” Loki looks down at the Grandmaster’s feet, which are bare. Like the fingernails upon his hands, his toenails are neatly painted a shining electric blue that mirrors the stripe upon his chin, and Loki looks wildly around the room, seeking out the sandals the Grandmaster had worn the evening previous.

They rest beside the door, and Loki steps toward them, taking them up before returning to the Grandmaster’s side. Once more, he crouches on the ground, and he slips them onto the Grandmaster’s feet with the greatest of delicacy, taking care to neatly tie the fastenings of the sandals in their place. When he is finished, the ties of the sandals symmetrical on each side, he remains momentarily upon his knees, looking up at the Grandmaster from his place on the ground, and the Grandmaster smiles at him, seeming pleased.

That—

Loki so adores that smile, craves more of it, and yet he is certain he must not deserve it, must not deserve the pleasant warmth of that smile, the way it so warms his cold blood… Loki softly inhales, and he drops back upon his backside, then crawling from the ground and looking about the room.

These clothes, this green tunic, his light trousers still ripped— This is inappropriate fare, he thinks, and so with a bare thought he allows his clothes to fade away and be replaced with a tunic of silken green, reinforced at its lining to ensure it does not hug his figure too overtly. Loose green trousers, the tunic shirt, with silver fastenings.

“Mmm… No, baby, I— I don’t think so,” the Grandmaster says, clucking his tongue and shaking his head at Loki, and Loki looks at him perplexedly. The Grandmaster’s hand comes out, and his broad palm slides against Loki’s shoulder: at the Grandmaster’s touch, electric blue spreads out across the fabric, replacing the green. The colour spreads as frost upon grass, and Loki exhales softly as the fabric he wears is quite transformed; even the silver fastenings change hue, turning from silver to gold. “There. That’s, uh, that’s _better_ , I— I really like that.” Loki reaches up, and he compares the shimmering colour of his sleeve to the colour at the Grandmaster’s chin. “Exactly, honey, _exactly_.”

Loki’s stomach gives a pang, and he realises that he is hungry once more – how long had he been asleep? He knows not, only that he had been asleep for quite some time, and the Grandmaster curls his fingers through Loki’s hair once more, curling through the thick, dark locks.

“You are just… _Golly_. Didn’t even try to sneak a peek between my, uh, between my legs, huh, baby?” Loki looks up at the Grandmaster, his lips parted, and he is unsure what he ought think in response to that, but then the Grandmaster is moving forward, toward the door, his hand releasing Loki’s hair. Bowing beneath the Grandmaster’s arm, Loki moves swiftly to the bed, and he draws the sheets back to their proper place on the bed, flattening them out before reaching for the Grandmaster’s pillow and pressing it back to its proper position. It feels good, to put his hands to work in such a way…

“Come on, Lo-Lo,” the Grandmaster says, gesturing with two fingers, and Loki moves to follow him. “Boots on.” Loki scarcely even thinks about it, reaching out with his seiðr and snapping his boots back onto his bare feet instead of stopping to pull them on, and he hears the Grandmaster laugh quietly as he reaches for Loki’s hand. Loki allows the Grandmaster to lead him out into the corridor, and this time, he is able to look about himself, able to pay attention to where his feet fall and where he moves to: last night, he had felt even more fractious than his usual, his mind giving way frequently to the pitfalls of unreality, but this feels—

Steadier.

A good night’s rest has served him well.

“Now, uh, I feel like I should, mmm, tell you a little bit about myself, huh? My name Is the Grandmaster, and I, uh… I’m what we call an _Elder_. You, uh, you ever heard of the Elders?” Loki shakes his head, and he focuses on the sensation of the Grandmaster’s palm against his own, the warmth of his skin, and even on the beat of his heart beneath the surface of it, the flow of ancient blood. He had been unaware last night, his senses distracted and confused, but now he feels the power than thrums from this man, the magic that surrounds his very form like a thundercloud—

( _Loki and Thor are laughing in the grass, and Loki flits between forms with excitement and aplomb: one moment he is a fox, dashing over the ground; the next he is a rabbit, diving into a burrow in the earth and rushing through; the next still, he is a boy again, and he bursts from the ground in a shower of dirt and laughter, landing heavy upon his brother’s back._

_“No!” Thor cries out, his scream a show of greatest anguish, as only boys at play might release, and then something whips through the air like a whip crack, something that causes the air to feel thick, feel suddenly oppressive, and then a fierce power seems to ripple over Loki’s very flesh. He cries out, falling to the ground with an awful shudder overtaking him, and he feels his hair come thick above his head, the static electricity affecting it to the greatest volume it has ever possessed._

_He whines and yells, but with the electricity arresting him, he knows not how to transform, how to protect himself with his magic, and he fidgets and wriggles._

_It is over, then, and Loki rests on the ground, breathing heavy and gasping in what he can, looking askance to their Father, who had been watching them at play. Laughing, Father takes Thor in his arms, scooping him beneath his armpits and drawing him to his chest, and he says, “Why, my son, therein lies the power that is your birthright – thunder!”_

_Loki sits in his place upon the ground, staring at them, his mouth agape, as Thor laughs and is ruffled at the hair, as Thor is clutched tightly where Loki is left to sprawl, skin still stinging, in the dirt—_

_And Loki reaches blindly for his nest of messy hair, doing his best to smooth it down again.)_

They are in a room unfamiliar to Loki, and Loki has been positioned, once more, upon a table. This is not a clinician’s table, settled within an infirmary, no – this is but a desk, a work table, in a wide hall with a high ceiling, and about the room Loki spies various tanks and jars that are filled with organs and fruits and odd things in jars, held in preservative fluids.

“You, uh, you back with us, huh?” the Grandmaster asks, sweetly, and Loki looks ashamedly down at his hands, feeling some awful beast snap its jaws within him, the beast that is Loki, that hates Loki: why is this happening? Why can he not remain cognizant of his own surroundings, where his very own footfalls tread, of where this Grandmaster leads him?

And yet, well he knows, there are great gaps in his memory for the past two months, travelling from one realm to the next, moving through space, through star systems: he is aware of the razed path behind him in snatches and limited recollections, and yet he remembers—

The Grandmaster snaps his fingers in front of Loki’s face, and Loki stares at him.

“You want something to eat?” Loki breathes in, aware that the Grandmaster had been talking, before – how much had he missed, of the Grandmaster’s speech? It is mortifying, to have lost such a burst in time, and he oughtn’t eat, oughtn’t let himself be rewarded in the face of such— “We’re gonna, uh, we’re gonna have something to eat.”

An attendant comes into the room, and Loki looks at him curiously, at the bright white of his tunic and the dark set of his trousers. He carries a tray of some sort of simple, fish-based parcels, made of a tightly-packed grain and a tightly knotted string of some weed or plant. He sets the tray beside the Grandmaster, upon the desk next to Loki, and he bows lowly before he walks away, disappearing out and into the corridor, slipping away…

The Grandmaster takes up a parcel and eats it, popping it between his lips and chewing it easily. His throat bobs when he swallows, and Loki envisions the way that throat might bubble forth if Loki were to…

The Grandmaster says nothing, this time, but arches an eyebrow, and Loki looks down to the tray. He is hungry. The mere scent of the parcels assaults his senses, digs right within him and makes his stomach growl in anticipation of something to sate his hunger, but guilt too hits him hard, and he hesitates overlong.

Taking up another of the parcels, the Grandmaster leans in a little closer, and he slides a parcel to Loki’s mouth: unable to even consider disobedience, Loki lets the Grandmaster feed him the parcel, forces his jaw to work and to chew it down. The taste explodes upon his tongue, and his eyes flutter closed as he swallows.

The Grandmaster’s thumb and forefinger hover against his lips, which are sensitive: the touch makes him shiver.

“Be good for me, Lo-Lo,” the Grandmaster says softly, but his tone is clear indeed – this is an order, an instruction. Loki wants orders. He wants instructions. He wants order imposed upon him, wants to be kept hemmed into the control of another, to keep him from straying, erring, ruining—

Loki reaches for another parcel, hesitates for but a moment, and then places it upon his tongue.

“Good boy,” the Grandmaster purrs, and Loki chews, feeling the differences in the texture upon his tongue, against his teeth… The grain, which easily comes apart beneath the grind of his teeth; the fish, which is softer and sweeter; the plant that binds it all, chewy and tasting of iron in the back of his throat. Loki eats another parcel. The Grandmaster is watching him, focused on Loki’s fingers and his mouth, and something about his gaze affects a heat to flicker within him, so he looks back down at the plate, and eats faster.

“You are awake,” proclaims the voice of Tan-Tan and Loki turns to watch him as he comes closer to the Grandmaster. Stood side-by-side, Loki can see that the Grandmaster is taller than him by several inches, but he is by no means small – like the Grandmaster, he too exudes an inexplicable aura, a sense of power that runs very deeply and that catches on the natural senses of Loki’s seiðr, calling power to power. “The hour is yet early, En Dwi.”

“Aw, _Tan-Tan_ , don’t be grumpy! Who says that I, uh, that I don’t want to spend time with my little brother, huh?” the Grandmaster asks, cupping Tan-Tan’s cheeks, and Loki crams two of the parcels into his mouth at once, closing his eyes tightly and chewing with speed and viciousness. _Brother_. Brother, brother, brother—

“And _you_ are awake too,” Tan-Tan says, looming over Loki, and Loki stares up at him, chewing through his full mouth and knowing not what to do, how best to respond to Tan-Tan’s dark and foreboding gaze, where he should put his hands or set his body, what— What— “Feral dog.”

Loki shifts, and he looks at Tan-Tan more severely, an instinct to lash out making itself known. Why does Tan-Tan look at him in this way, so very imperiously, so—

“I don’t see why you should pick this animal over another, En Dwi,” Tan-Tan murmurs, his lip curled in a show of some apparent disgust. Loki looks at him, looks at him hard, carefully, and Tan-Tan slowly shakes his head. “You ought put it aside. It is unbalanced, broken – it will harm your causes more than it will aid them.”

“Tan-Tan, so _intolerant_ ,” the Grandmaster says from across the room, tossing the admonishment loosely over his shoulder as he examines some jar of Fata liver, curiously swilling the substance about its jar. “Just because he’s obviously had, uh… A little bit of a hard time, but I, uh, I _want_ him. He’s _pretty_.”

“It is an _animal_ ,” Tan-Tan says darkly. “It will bite you as soon as you turn your back upon it – a monstrous thing. You would do better to leave it here.”

( _“He took my children from me,” Loki snaps, and Thor trembles in Loki’s doorway as desperate power burns from his very skin, freezing the very air between them. Frost forms thick upon the ground and icicles form on the ceiling, and Loki’s very skin feels sharp and firmly cold, and he is jagged, broken, at a **loss!**_

_This is more than a mere injustice, more than merely overlooking Loki’s thoughts or his love – Odin has ripped Loki’s children from his very breast, cast them to three corners of the Nine Realms, cast them from him, and his wife lies dead in the waters of the Jut Sea, Angrboða dead! Dead!_

_Loki’s children, gone from him, his wife dead, and Thor, Thor, **Thor** —_

_“They were monstrous, Loki, he had no choice,” Thor says sharply, his cheeks flushed. “They were monstrous things, can’t you see that?”_

_“They were my children!”_ )

“Uh huh,” the Grandmaster says snidely. “It’s, uh, it’s totally not because _you_ don’t have a Jötunn in your collection.” Tan-Tan scowls.

“I don’t want your toy, En Dwi.”

“Good. He’s mine.”

“But it is an ugly little thing,” Tan-Tan continues. “And if it talks not, it may be too dim to try.”

_(“Your children? Your children? Those— Those things could scarcely even talk!” Thor snaps harshly, breathing heavily. He seeks so desperately to defend the actions of their father, of the Council of the Gods – he seeks so eagerly to ensure that Loki might not retrieve his children, believes… How can he believe that? How can he look at Loki’s **babies** , and hate them so? Call them such ugly things? “The wolf that could only snap its jaws and growl; the snake that only hissed—”_

_“Because the palace guard left their mother dead in the water – how much would you speak, were our mother slaughtered before us? I could not say a word! I should never say a word again, if I lost her, or you, and yet you expect my children to pontificate as their mother is slaughtered before them, as their siblings are hauled away in chains! You are an ugly thing, Thor: it is you who are ugly. And Odin is the only monster here.”_

_“You are blinded,” Thor whispers, disgust and horror showing in his face, and he stumbles back and away from Loki, who shakes in his place and does his best not to sob. He knows not what he can say, what he can do – never has Thor known of Sleipnir, ripped too from Loki’s breast, but this, this! Angrboða dead; Fenrisúlfr, Jormungandr, Hel, each remanded in chains, his children, his children… “You will see that this was the only decision, soon. Those things would have brought about Ragnarok, were they permitted to remain free. You would see Asgard burn?”_

_“If Asgard sees fit to rip the children from their parents’ breast, then Asgard deserves to burn.”_

_Thor slams the door as he leaves._

_Raggedly, desperately, Loki sobs into his hands.)_

Tan-Tan is shaking beneath him. Loki’s hands are against his shoulders, and he feels his jaws snap against one another as he glares down at him, his wolfish teeth bared. He is more wolf than man in this moment, and Tan-Tan is breathing heavily, his eyes wide – yes. Good. Tan-Tan should fear him, should fear that Loki will rip out his throat and taste of his blood, bite into his heart meat and taste it in the back of his throat.

“Lo-Lo,” the Grandmaster instructs mildly from across the room. “No biting.”

Loki falls back onto his backside, climbing fast from atop Tan-Tan’s body, and Tan-Tan scrambles from the ground, wiping his hands rapidly over his shoulders and taking the dust away from the fur ruff at his arm, from the way it clings to his leather suit. “You see!?” he demands, harshly, his voice rising slightly as he gesticulates wildly, messily, his veneer of self-control seemingly shattered. “It is entirely undomesticated, a wild thing thirsty for blood, and you—”

“I knew what he was, uh, gonna do, little bro,” the Grandmaster replies sweetly, and Loki looks up at him as he comes closer, leaning his jaw into the Grandmaster’s palm when it comes to cup his cheek, coaxing Loki to lay his head against the Grandmaster’s thigh. “And besides, you, uh, you were _provoking_ him.”

Embarrassed, his cheeks flushed a dark purple, Tan-Tan clenches his hands tightly into fists, and he exhales harshly.

“I have work to complete,” Tan-Tan growls, and Loki inhales and exhales slowly, one of his hands loosely curled around the Grandmaster’s surprisingly muscular calf, his cheek pressing against the Grandmaster’s warm thigh and the fingers that are curling pleasantly through his hair. Tan-Tan’s bootsteps retreat from the room and out into the wider halls, and Loki takes in the scent that clings to the Grandmaster’s robes, feels it settle thick within him.

“We do need to work on _that_ ,” the Grandmaster murmurs dryly, squeezing his hair a little tightly and putting pressure upon Loki’s scalp, making him shiver. “So, uh— Such a hair-trigger, honey. I want you, uh, a little more… _Focused up_. You still hungry? You, uh, you want some more to eat?”

The Grandmaster handfeeds him, presses more of the little parcels into Loki’s mouth, and it is as if he is the entirety of Loki’s world, of his vision, of his taste – the Grandmaster is _everything_ , and for the time being Loki feels calm, and solid, as if he is firmly planted upon the ground…

“You, uh, you want to do it, sweetheart?” the Grandmaster asks softly, stroking his hair. “You want to be my cute little personal attendant? You’re such a good little thing, so— So _clever_ , and so strong. And don’t you listen to Tan-Tan at all, calling you feral. He’s just jealous that you’re _my_ kitten instead of his, that he can’t put you up in his stuffy little collection. I just have to say, it’s been a long time since I had an assistant with as much, mmm, potential as you – I have my Topaz, and she’s just the most fabulous second-in-command I ever knew, but, uh, but she’s back on Sakaar. I should tell you about Sakaar! Sakaar is my planet, I, ha, I made it myself. You wanna hear about it, sweetheart?”

After a moment’s pause, Loki nods his head, looking at the Grandmaster eagerly and with focused concentration, and when the Grandmaster talks at length, talking and talking…

Loki can relax.

Loki can just let the Grandmaster wash over him, and sink himself in the Grandmaster’s focus.


End file.
